By Anjan Roy
When Ratan Tata bought the sick and besieged Jaguar Land Rover —iconically JLR— the company had fished out the voucher for the purchase of a Jaguar car by his father, Naval Tata, in 1923.
European automobile industry bigwigs had then expressed their doubts about an Indian conglomerate, Tata Group’s ability to turn around the deeply troubled JLR. Their scepticism came from the fact that Jaguar was once the most sought after car in Europe. A gauge of that fame was the fact that the Jaguars were most frequently stolen automobiles.
Managing JLR was no cakewalk. Both Jaguar and Land Rover were high end automobiles and the market was limited. It was more so as the shrinking European car markets were facing fierce competition from a host of top notch companies, who were deeply entrenched in the market.
Besides, England, which was once famed for its engineering skills, was sliding down steeply and its hold over the automobile industry had conceded defeat before the German biggies. All the major English dominated automobiles companies had changed hands and even the legendary Role Royce had passed hands.
The market for Jaguar was mainly in America and the emerging Chinese market. India could hardly be a market base for the hugely costly car. The company had a large debt and financials were not strong enough.
Ratan Tata was blamed in the years immediately following its take over for acquiring a white elephant. It was a drag.
However, Ratan Tata persevered. He brought about major changes in the company and above all he established a synergy with the Indian outfit of the Tata stable, Tata Motors. That was then like merging two weaklings, on the face of it, no good solution.
But it worked. Tata Motors could get the real high tech of the automobiles industry and JLR could get major cost advantages by out-sourcing work to the Indian engineering wings under strict supervision of the JLR technologists. Both companies could gain.
Today, in India, Tata Motors’ products get the eyeballs in the market. By volumes, Tata products come immediately after Maruti Suzuki. And JLR with the strong financial and infrastructure backing of the Tata Group, could once again command a presence in the global market. Above all, with JLR coming home to India, its Indian market has also expanded considerably.
That was the beginning of Ratan Tata’s stewardship of the primarily Indian group. Thereafter Ratan Tata picked a few sick steel mills in Europe and although there he was not as successful as he was with JLR, these forays made the Tata name familiar in the rather snooty circles in Europe and America.
Ratan Tata was sought after on the boards of major multinational companies of America and Japan, including such super arrogant ones like investment banks of the Wall Street.
The ground has of course been laid for many years by none other than JRD Tata. Under the guidance of JRD, Tata group has spread their wings and acquired solid financial strength. The Tata group was strongly anchored in steel and engineering in the country which gave them the rock hard base to lurch forward and take risks.
Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO), Tata Engineering and Locomotives Company (TELCO), Tata Chemicals, Indian Hotels Ltd, to name a few, were the star performers. To it was added, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) which had established itself as a forerunner in the IT services industry.
Tatas had acquired a tea company in the early when the sterling tea units had to dilute their shares. Finlay Tea had some of the extensive gardens in north Bengal and Assam. It was later covered into Tata Tea. After merging Tata group coffee estates in south India, Tata Tea today is the largest non-alcoholic beverages company in the world.
Ratan Tata had always sought to achieve scale, along with quality. TCS is the largest software services unit. However when Ratan Tata took the mantle from JRD Tata, no one could have foreseen what he made of the goup when he left this world on October 9 this year at the ripe age of 86.
Tatas had grown under extremely strong leadership of entrepreneur-managers of the group. When Ratan Tata took over, the group looked like split amongst fiefs of these big time chiefs of the Tata companies. Tata Chemicals was headed by Darbari Seth and he was a proud man, with strong ego.
The Indian Hotels Ltd, which owned and operated Tata’s marquee, Taj chain of hotels, was headed by Ajit Kerkar, who had nurtured the hotels of the chain like a nursery. Ajit Kerkar’s writ was written all over the Taj hotels and it was he who knew the tricks of the industry.
And above all, Tata’s flagship company, from which it all began, TISCO in Jamshedpur, was ruled by none other than Russi Modi. Son of Sir Homy Modi, and brother of Piloo Modi, the parliamentarian, he belonged to the Parsi community’s royalty.
So much so, that Tata headquarters, Bombay House, was situated on the Homi Modi Street, which it still occupies. Russi was the emperor of TISCO and possibly knew every worker in the sprawling steel plant by name. Under Russi, Jamshedpur could remain a oasis of industrial peace.
It was difficult for Russi to accept Ratan as the chairman of the TISCO board and listen to his dictates. There were grounds for it. After Ratan returned from Cornell in USA, he was sent to Jamshedpur to get exposure to the industrial culture in the biggest of Tata companies. Russi had taken him under his wings as a trainee manager.
A fight began for predominance in which two strong willed persons faced each other. For Ratan establishing his fiat at TISCO was essential if he was to lead the Tata Group. For Russi it was difficult to concede his absolute turf to a youngster who was trained under him. It was only with the support of JRD than Ratan could vanquish Russi in battleground Jamshedpur. And JRD was no longer there.
Ratan had fought similar battles for taking over control at Tata Chemicals, Tata Tea, and elsewhere. He had of course got a walk over in TELCO as the then chief of the company, S. Moolgaokar, a chitpavan Brahmin from Pune, had seen the straws in the wind and himself walked out.
The independent company heads could become so very powerful when Rata Tata took over the helms because JRD had given complete freedom to his chosen managers as entrepreneurs and let them flourish without much interference. JRD could manage the situation because of his overwhelming preeminence at the head of the Tata Group. A young Ratan Tata had to fight for his preeminent position.
By then, a few years after JRD’s death, when Ratan Tata had become the absolute ruler of the Tata Group, he had established the principle that all group companies using the Tata brand must pay a brand use fee to the holding company. It was a sign of the times — the group companies were part of the conglomerate and not independent units under their respective overlords. Royalty was like the “nazrana” of an earlier times.
If initially in his fight to establish himself, Ratan Tata had escaped without serious bruises, he had suffered some wounds in his fight to regain control from a man who he himself had brought in. It is still fresh in memory.
Ratan Tata had been thinking of succession. He was looking around. He had tasked an internal board level committee to define and spell out parameters for choosing the next chairman of the Tata Group. Ratan was ageing.
After serious consideration by a team of the senior most members of the board, Ratan Tata had identified a kind of insider in the Parsi circles. The Mistry family was a long time major shareholder in the Tata Group, although they were forever a sleeping partner and never interfered in management.
The doyen of the Mistry family was an Irish citizen and his sons were looking after their large construction business, spread all over the country. It was the elder son, Cyrus Mistry, who was identified as the next chairman of the Tata Group. Rata Tata himself anointed Cyrus Mistry as chairman.
A scion of a long-established large business house, Cyrus Mistry was no mere manager and he had his own ideas about managing a large empire like the Tata group.
Obviously, Ratan found it difficult to manage Cyrus and the latter was bent on following his own course. It became incompatible and Ratan eventually decided to get rid of Cyrus, as being not in consonance with the Tata group values and norms. What exactly where the points of departure were never explained.
Cyrus was given a few warnings and then one fine morning when Cyrus reached his office of chairman at Bombay House, he was found himself locked out. It was least to say unsavoury way of parting and contrary to norms in Bombay House.
Soon the conflict reached the courts and the private spat became public. Such open confrontation had never happened in the Tata House.
Behind the entire Mistry drama, some Tata insiders say, was Ratan’s eagerness to keep out his half brother, Noel Tata. Noel Tata was the second son of Naval Tata from his second marriage with a French woman. As Naval was married to his new wife, Ratan was left to the care of his grandmother. In fact, years later Ratan had come back to India hurriedly when he had heard about the illness of his grandmother who had brought him up.
Fast forward, Noel had always been on the sidelines of Tata affairs, given to manage a fledgling fashion and retail business. He did not have any exposure to managing a large and diversified and complex conglomerate as the Tata Group of today. It is only recently that rumours have been afloat that Noel Tata’s daughter, an acute young lady, was being groomed for bigger positions in the Tata Group in future.
As things stand, Tata Sons, the holding company, is headed by a professional manager, N. Chandrasekharan, a committed executive. However, he is no insider nor does he have a stake. What will be the future management dispensation of the Tata Group? There are hardly any instances of a successful and flourishing company with professional managers heading the show, except that of Larsen and Toubro.
If there has been one lacunae in Ratan Tata’s leadership, it could be a fuzzy succession line. He leaves the Tata Group a sort of an orphan.
Hopefully , that will be sorted out as Tatas had faced similar situation earlier as well. It was in 1938, JRD Tata aged 34, was appointed chairman of Tata Sons Ltd on July 26, 1938, on the sudden death of the then incumbent Sir Rowroji Saklatvala. Possibly, the two daughters of Noel Tata, who are already in Tata service, would be the future guides of the Group. (IPA Service)
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